


When Will I See You Again?

by immoralwastaken



Category: DreamWasTaken - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Biting, Blood, Choking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of past emotional manipulation, NOW for the kinks, Porn With Plot, Praise Kink, Rough Sex, That's all you really need to know, because of a broken nose and a busted up knuckle (nothing too fun), reader has no mentioned body type but a name is said a few times, second chapter is super long and is where the spice happens, the character is half phantom and has a long sordid history with dream, this is a prison!dream fic and is sorta canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29913096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoralwastaken/pseuds/immoralwastaken
Summary: or, a half-phantom artist visits her disgraced lover in his prison cell.feelings are raw, tensions run high, and it's all she can do not to immediately collapse in his arms.---Once he’s out of the way, she can see a couple potatoes off to the side. He had been tilling the dirt with his fingers. It causes something to rip through her chest-- that side of him she sees every night, the part that haunts her thoughts, the piece of him that imbedded itself behind her ribcage. She could have taught him if he had given her the time. If he had stayed a little longer, if she had pushed a little harder...
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Reader, Clay |Dream/OFC, Dream/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	1. Just Exist

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any questions about the plotline, i've done entirely too much thinking about it! and if you like this, you'll probably like some other stuff i have in the works. both this oc/dream as well as a dream/reader roadtrip inspired fic, so stick around if you want to!
> 
> thanks for giving me a chance c:

Everyone else had their fill of seeing Dream caged rather quickly. A visit or two to spite him, to prod him for answers, to mock him. Bad was the last, and Leta’s thankful someone finally had the decency to retrieve her from her unintentional exile. 

It took weeks to come to terms with the fact that L’Manberg was in ruins. Longer still to come to terms with it being Dream’s doing. 

Tommy’s exile was over. Doomsday had come and gone. Everyone migrated away from the painful reminder of the past, as red vines crept up and through the hole in the ground and into the citizen’s hearts. She walks through the wreckage, wearing down a path to the place where her home used to be. It’s a straight drop now, down hundreds of feet. Not the slightest indication of her home was left-- when Dream rushed her out of the country, she left behind everything, save a small kit of paint, several rolled canvases, and a change of clothes. She left behind her pets, her money, her trinkets and keepsakes. Her stomach turns at the thought of them obliterated as Dream laughed from his perch in the sky. 

Would he have cared, had she protested and stayed in the city? 

She doesn’t want to know. The truth is painful enough as it is.

When Bad first approached her, she was convinced the SMP had calmed down. Dream had made peace with Tommy, she could go home safely, she could live her life with him once again, and perhaps not have to hide. She remembers it all in an instant, some of the best moments of her life.

He’d take her away, some nights. Back before the craziness, back before he became so busy and disconnected. They’d make their way through forests, they’d sit and watch the stars. He’d rattle off facts about navigating by constellations as she poured tea for them from a thermos. For hours they’d stay there. It was like seeing him shed his skin, layer by raw layer, even if his heavy armor stayed on. He’d be honest with her-- really, truly honest about the future. How much he wanted to make a place for them to stay for good, how he’d been watching Sam build, thinking he was finally picking up some tips for construction. 

There were times she could really picture it. A home with Dream. Makeshift and messy and covered entirely with her paint job. A small garden by the front, one he’d accidentally step in, one she could teach him how to treat. Domestic fantasies of her hands on his, covering a potato with damp soil, and turning to him to see the mask lifting on his face. A sign he was smiling so wide, it’d move the porcelain visage. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself moving it to give him a soft kiss. 

She stares back down at the empty plot where she once lived. 

He’d never share that memory with her. All she can do is take a breath as the lingering smell of gunpowder and singed spruce hangs in the air even after all this time.

She tears her eyes away from the gaping hole in the earth, turns towards where the compass pointed. Bad had given it to her, moments after greeting her. Just before he explained why he was visiting.

As she walks, she remembers the way her heart crept from her chest and crawled to the floor in front of her feet. _“He’s been a bit of a rotten potato,” Bad had said. “He’s locked up for now, but you can definitely visit! I know he’s probably missing you.”_ Notorious for being positive, his acknowledgement that Dream had been descending into violence gripped her with fear. He mentioned taking it slow on the journey back, to understand that it had been a hard time for everyone. He broke it to her carefully, what had happened on that final day. He held her as she cried, pet her wings as they rose and shuddered with her sobs. Walked her gently through the last fight for the discs, treating her heart like glass as he described Dream’s fall.

He left a few days later, mentioned something calling him back. It took her much longer to consider following a call of her own. But when she moves some things around in her room and sees their book, the pang of hurt is so strong and so sudden, she clutches her chest as she falls to her knees. 

She left the next evening, traveling in the comfort of night. When she reached ‘home’, something within her broke. Hearing his transgressions and seeing them weren’t comparable, not even close. There’s a gap in her memory, though she remembers waking up, covered in burns from the daylight, underneath the shade of a tree. Someone left a note and a few small meals. 

Her wings are still healing. It’s painful to think about, the closer she gets to the location Bad had given her. She wants to fly, wants to run, but even after several days building courage and licking her wounds, she’s reduced to a slow and steady walk. 

She passes a few people on the way, but has no words for them. They regard her with something resembling pity, and she vaguely hears her name from one of them. In all honesty, she has a hard time putting faces with names anymore. It’s been so long since she’d had to think of anyone. 

She’s close to the prison now, has to crane her neck to look up at the massive penitentiary. She doesn’t let herself think too hard about the fact that the only person inside is the same person she had promised her heart to.

Sam welcomes her inside the portal room, expression unreadable yet appraising, even from behind his mask. 

“It’s been a long time, Leta. Where have you been living?” His tone has an edge to it, though it’s obvious he’s trying to keep it somewhat casual. 

“West,” she says. The sound of her voice is unfamiliar. It’s thready and tired. “West, past the Badlands. Way past them, actually.”

He nods, writes something down. Coolly, “do you think he deserves it?”

“Pardon?”

“The prisoner. Do you think he deserves to be here?”

There’s not a second of hesitation on her part, though it conjures a bruising pain in her heart. “He does.”

A much longer pause passes, she can hear him stop and nearly start several times. 

“What is your prior relationship with the prisoner?”

Her heart aches deeper. They weren’t able to make plans to tell anyone, though she got plenty of playful jabs in the early days about sympathizing with him. Puffy laughed about it one day, what felt like hundreds of years ago-- _“you and the duckling? I could see it.”_ No one thought the jokes had any real grounds, she was convinced. It was just lighthearted. 

But the way Sam’s hand twitches to start writing before she speaks confirms that everyone knew more than they let on, or at least he did. 

“We were close,” she settles on. It’s noncommittal and true. Would they still be close after this? 

He hums in understanding. The rest of the process getting to his cell is tedious and careful, she has to go through several deaths and searches before they’re finally, finally there. The dread is rising in her throat, knotting up painfully and making it hard to breathe or think clearly.

Sam’s voice, strong and smooth breaks her silence. “He’s just ahead. Walk with the platform, don’t want to end up falling in the lava. I’ll close it all behind you, and then I’ll unlock the cell so you can speak freely. Remember you cannot give anything to him, or I’ll have to confiscate and destroy it.”

She nods and steps onto the platform. The heat in the room was already intense, but as she’s slowly carried over a lake of molten rock, the sensitive burns on her wings feel like they’re smoldering. She just watches the floor, trying to keep herself grounded. She can’t bring herself to look up and face the music.

She faces Sam as the lava begins to come back down, and hears something behind her click and retract loudly. A mechanism whirrs in the distance. 

Footsteps move closer, making slow and heavy sounds on the obsidian. 

The voice she hears nearly brings her to weeping. 

“ _Leta,_ ” he breathes. 

Her eyes burn, nose tingles as hot tears brew. She closes her eyes harshly, but she’s too late. Fat, crystalline tears burn paths down her cheeks. It hurts, sears hotter than the heat from the lava she faces.

Her head bows, wings sag. She can’t delay any further though, and turns to face him. 

It’s her Clay. 

He has some new scars peeking out from the edges of his chipped and cracked mask. She can see a hint of one of his cheekbones through a larger fracture, notes just how malnourished everything about him looks. The uniform hangs off his body, his feet are bare. His hair is longer, skimming his shoulders, and lacks the shine it had from the last time she saw him. His discomfort is palpable, and the look in his eyes reads as something she’s never seen on him before. She can’t place the emotion.

His head tilts to the side, clearly waiting on an answer from her. It exposes his neck, where more scars and burns are littered. How could he look so used, when he was the one who caused the supernova of hurt?

“Dream.”

He looks scared to touch her. His hand reaches for hers, and when he steps forward, the green of his eyes is lit up by the glowing magma. It hurts to look at, and she flinches away when his fingers brush against hers. 

He looks like he’s been kicked, takes an unsteady step back. “I uh, I should’ve expected that. Yeah.” His eyes drop to the floor, then to an empty spot on the wall. “You have questions, right? Let me--” And he’s moving over to a chest in the corner. He sits on the floor, gestures for her to use the box as a seat. “You can, uh. I mean, like, if you want.”

Quietly, she rests on the chest. It’s more comfortable than the floor, but the heat that coats everything around them is just as oppressive, even when she isn’t making direct contact with the walls. Despite sitting, she isn’t looking down on him too much. She chalks it up to how uncomfortably tall he is, even when slouching like now. 

He’s fiddling with his nails, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. His voice is hollow. 

“For what, exactly?”

“For everything, I’m sorry.”

She draws in a breath. Leta can’t blame him for not looking her in the eyes. She still can’t bring herself to do the same, not really. A few seconds of it leave her nerves shot, scorched. There’s a fuzz around everything she’s feeling, static taking up residence in her bones.

She should be angrier than she is. “The building you were writing to me about, months ago. The one you were proud of? It was this, wasn’t it.”

“Yeah,” he says absently. 

“Thought you were building a home.”

“Oh.”

It’s quiet for a long time after that. Steeling her nerves feels like a herculean task and she’s wading through molasses. Every errant thought about how broken he looks pulls at her words, forcing her to choke and swallow them back down. He does look crushed. He’s never looked so tired, he’s never looked so completely weak.

“I love what you’ve done with L’Manberg,” is how she starts again. Her laugh is dry. 

His reaction is immediate, she can see the whites of his eyes all at once. “Leta, oh my god.”

She’s actually angry now, despite the remorse in his voice. “And I heard about Tommy, too. What a sweet kid,” she grits out. “I really believed you, when you whisked me away. I thought you meant it when you said you cared. You were-- You were going to save me from everything.”

“W-Wait, Leta, please, just-- just let me--”

She sits up straighter now, her wings perk up and raise with the tension in her shoulders. “It was always going to be your fault, and you knew that, didn’t you? Is that why you lied to me? Why you fed me lie, after lie, after lie-- You-- I fucking cried over you!” 

Her breath quickens, the heat and the tension and the emotion starting to wash over her in nauseating waves. Her skin prickles.

“When you went silent, I was convinced Tommy killed you. For weeks I thought you were dead, that I should watch out, that the next time I saw anyone I cared about, it’d mean I was about to die too.” 

“I mourned you until crying was second nature. I remember so clearly the last thing you wrote to me. Do you?”

“I--”

She cuts him off, tone acid, “ _‘the world for you, I promise. I’ll be home soon.’_ ” 

She sobs, distractedly realizes she had started crying, “I threw away my whole life because you acted like you needed me to, and you… You ruined it, you ruined everything. _You_ were supposed to protect me. You-- You said you’d protect me, I…” 

He comes up on his knees, places a shaking hand on her thigh. His voice crackles with emotion, but she can’t tell how synthetic it might be. Another practiced speech. “I-- I tried, I just… I, uh, I was, was trying to get everything back, I wanted you to come home when it was all like before.” 

His tongue sounds clumsy and heavy in his mouth, he’s stumbling so slowly over his words. 

Bile rises in her throat as she finds herself wanting to believe him. The quotes Tommy relayed ring in her head though, so she spits them back at him too.

“Oh? That was all, you sure you weren’t just manipulating me before someone else could? _‘I cut my attachment, because that’s what gave people power over each other,’_ ” she taunts. “You isolated me from my friends, from my home, from my comforts. You even isolated me from you. And I thought, ‘he knows what’s best for me, he’s the only one I can trust’. I was never in danger from anyone other than you.”

His head has been hanging for a while now, but his grip tightens on her leg. He chokes a breath out and the world freezes. Had he started to cry? 

_**“Please.”** _

It’s so heartbreakingly earnest, the fire she wanted to cast dies on her tongue, leaving her twisting with ashes.

“Leta... You were the last pure thing I had.” His voice drops an octave, suddenly soft, “I didn’t want you to see how ugly the world was getting.”

“How could you say that, after everything you told Tommy? You never loved me. You loved what you could do with me.”

He looks up at her now, hair falling back. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy with shameful tears. He looks up at her, naked and abashed. “That’s not true, Leta, you have to believe me. Please.”

“Then say it.”

“...What?”

“Say that you love me. And mean it, Clay.”

He goes quiet, and confusion is clear on the parts of his face she can see. When it’s not fast enough for her, she stands. His hand falls slack off of her, she pulls herself together as she turns away. 

“Sam? Sam, I’m ready to go.” It’s much easier to pretend her heart isn’t rotting in her chest, that she isn’t falling apart at the seams when she’s not facing him. 

“Wait, Leta, please--”

The far off mechanism groans and forces its gears to move again, gate rising from the floor. She feels an arm grab at her from behind, through the slats. She takes another step forward and starts to tune out his pleading. 

She’s halfway across the lava pool when something he says gets through.

“ _ **Please, you’re the last thing I have left to lose.**_ ”

She can’t help it, when Sam stands in front of her in the open doorway, she falls into his arms. Tears stream openly from her eyes, soaking the starched cotton of his shirt. He’s rigid at first, startled, but the longer she cries the more he relents. He holds her and it reminds her of Bad. Her heart is glass again, though it’s been shattered, each piece pummeled into a fine sand. 

“I had no idea,” he starts. “Dream’s hurt so many people, and I didn’t know you were one of them, he never mentioned you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and it sobers her more than she’d like. She holds her breath until the gasping sobs subside, forces herself to wipe the emotion from her mind. She’s numb when he starts talking again, but catches what he’s offering. Supplies and a place to stay, a way to start over, away from Dream. She gives him a vague answer and collects herself.

He’s quieter, taking her back from the cell. He seems to empathize, she thinks. 

When she goes to leave, he asks her if she found the food he had left with her. It clicks in her head and she thanks him. He gives her some more as she starts to leave, tells her to travel safely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> leta returns, ready to face him again.

A month passes and she hears from no one. 

With nothing else to go back to, she returns to the home she had built. No sense in trying to live in the cold, no reason to reconnect with the people she was already so distant from. She had sided with Dream, she had supported him-- how was she supposed to share a neighborhood with people she might’ve been hurting?

It’s lonely, in her sturdy house and barren garden.

There’s an unnamable feeling that creeps under her skin at night, though. At the edge of sleep, he’s there. He watches over her, gives the same wave she’s seen him do hundreds of times. It’s so normal. It forces itself into her heart, claws at her muscle and sinew there to make a home for itself. The memory of who he was reminds her of the roses she grew back in L’manberg. Beautiful and strong and vibrant, but all sharp edges and pricked fingers when she reaches out to touch them with ungloved hands. 

She has to admit she misses him. 

It’s an ugly part of her that does, forged in anxiety and deep dependency. It cries for the life that could have been so perfect, pines for his touch when it was truly protective and safe. She sets a date, decides the only way to get rid of these awful feelings is to confront him again. She’ll end it all, tell him off again. Find a way to take pleasure in his pain. 

She could wear that resolution like a crown. Champion it back into Snowchester as a badge of pride, announce the way she spit in Dream’s face. Maybe then she’d have a right to be there. She would have a right to see her old friends again. 

The days tick by, she packs a bag the morning before, decides she’ll wear something that’ll make him nostalgic. There’s a sundress he got her, too long ago. It’s a soft green, he liked the idea of her wearing his color. White lace decorates it so delicately, just looking at it makes something in her melt before she forces herself to freeze over again. If she was saying goodbye to her ideals of him, maybe she’d let him do the same. And wearing his favorite dress wouldn’t hurt to twist the knife a little.

She takes off again in the night, though she’s there before daylight creeps up on her. Benefits of being a hybrid, she supposes. Her wings do ache from moving so tirelessly, but the weight off her shoulders will more than make up for this pain. When she lands, she takes some time to adjust herself. Combs her fingers through her hair, straightens her skirt. Takes another look back at L’Manberg and reminds herself why she’s here. 

The walk to the portal house is short. Sam sees her, and something in his posture changes. “You’re back.”

“Unfinished business,” she says simply.

He likes the answer, she thinks. The process of getting in is just as tedious as before, though he makes more conversation as they get closer to the cell. “Honestly, he’s been acting up. If you had come any earlier, I wouldn’t have let you in.”

She nods slowly, wonders what all ‘acting up’ entails. But then again, it isn’t hers to care about anymore. There’s an odd sort of calm that centers her with that understanding, as she stands in front of the lava lake again. This time, she stares straight ahead at his cell. It looks different than before, and she can’t really see him from afar. 

When she’s closer and steps from stone to obsidian, she sees him. Kneeling in the corner, messing around with something. It looks like dirt. He’s preoccupied, but says a dismissive hello over his shoulder. 

“Hi,” she says simply. And he wilts.

His hands go to fists, both hit the ground with a muffled thud as he leans down. His voice is already broken. “ _Leta_ ,” he breathes, just like he did before. It sounds like relief, he sounds lighter. “I… Thank you for coming back.”

That steadfast energy that had been driving her here dissipates and suddenly she’s feeling just as exposed as he must be. She’s quiet, watches him stand up and wipe the dirt off on his pants which are already smeared with soil. 

Once he’s out of the way, she can see a couple potatoes off to the side. He had been tilling the dirt with his fingers. It causes something to rip through her chest-- that side of him she sees every night, the part that haunts her thoughts, the piece of him that imbedded itself behind her ribcage. She could have taught him if he had given her the time. If he had stayed a little longer, if she had pushed a little harder...

Her brows furrow, and he must see the conflict on her face. 

He steps forward, takes her face in his hands before she processes exactly what’s happening. It’s too familiar all at once, the way that he holds her face so gently. The look in his eyes takes her back and for a moment she’s frozen. The house, the garden, the picket fence. The sound of his laugh crescendoing into a wheeze fills her ears. The hundreds of touches all filled with admiration and warmth swarm her skin. She feels his love. The love that turned her blood to amber honey, made everything taste like fresh sugar cane.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, and it snaps her back to reality. Before he can continue, she tears one of his hands off her face with a renewed and righteous fury. 

Her free fist reels back before understanding crosses her mind, and the sound of bone connecting with his flat mask cracks resoundingly through the cell. He staggers back, completely stunned. He watches her take a few paces away as blood drips from under his mask and spatters messily onto the ground. His hand goes to the carved smile, another fracture streaking across the eye, and rips it off disdainfully. It’s discarded to the other side of the cell. She hears a soft tinkling of a chunk breaking off. 

“What the fuck was that?” There’s brimstone in his voice, he spits blood to the side. For a split second, she sees the darkness in him push past the surface. Some maelstrom of hate and repression makes him lurch a half step forward, she watches the tension seep from his head to his feet. It’s as if he grows larger somehow while what little light is in the cell is drained. She reflexively takes another step back, but her heels bump into the wall behind them. She draws her hands to her chest to steady herself. He’s calculating of her, flicks his eyes up and down. Though when he hesitates and glances down again, eyes going softer, she follows his gaze. 

Leta’s knuckle is split and ugly, she’s been bleeding onto her dress. Smeared across her heart is a deep, rich colored stain. She stares down at her hand, flexes her muscles and instantly recoils. Acknowledging it makes some of the adrenaline bleed away and she cradles the wounded hand closer to her chest. It thumps dully, she can feel her pulse radiating out to her fingertips. 

She’s too stunned to cry, too frustrated to yell. So Leta sighs deeply, shakily, and the sound rasps out of her. 

He looks well and truly frozen now. And since she can see his full face, she can watch as he tries to say something, going the tiniest bit slack jawed. When she doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, he finds words. “Let-- God, let me, let me wash that? Please?”

“Take another step towards me and I’ll swing again.”

“We both know that won’t go well.” Now his brow draws together, she observes the tension in his face. “I said I was sorry. I just want to help.”

He’s right. She doesn’t anticipate him hurting her in retaliation, but she’ll end up hurting herself more while he stays alright, other than what looks like a broken nose. She managed to catch him the first time. He’s staring now, she won’t get another strike in. Even with all the concern in the world shining in his eyes, she knows his reputation. The habits he can’t kick, the parts of him he can’t file down even in her company. 

It was hard to watch, when he was outside prison. The constant checking behind his back, the sudden harsh shushes that had him craning his neck and listening for even the slightest sound at the cost of a happy, talkative dinner. How he refused to keep his back to a door or a window. How he never slept, could never allow himself the comfort of rest even if she offered to stand guard. He felt constantly on the run-- not for fear of dying, but for fear of being found. It’s why he could only break down his walls miles away from home. They’d get lost in the woods, or underground, or at sea. He always felt so vulnerable unless they were at the mercy of nature, away from the light of any torches. 

Domestic life was so frequently interrupted by his tendencies. Even as simple as wooden tables constantly splintering at a fist slammed too hard. The constant fear of her potential duplicity had sparked many arguments in the beginning, before he swept her off her feet. She recognizes in this moment, that’s probably why he took her away in the first place.

“You’ve helped enough.”

He sets his jaw and starts moving forward, she has nowhere left to go. When he’s close enough to touch, she tries to shove him back and bites back a groan. Pain sparks up her arm, fast like lightning. It makes her wobble, his arm shoots out to press a hand to obsidian behind her. It’s right next to her waist, not touching yet protective. He’s holding himself back in the most obvious way-- bloody and malnourished and at his wits end, he’s still got a power behind his touch she can’t fully understand. 

It pisses her off that she finds the gesture comforting.

“Get off,” she starts, pushing at him with an uninjured arm. It’s weak and pathetic, she knows, and there’s something in her steadily crumbling. She feels the weight of it in her chest, feels each bit of resolve tumbling down. When she looks up at him, his gaze is troubled and patient. It makes her sick to her stomach.

“Get off,” she tries again. Starts pounding at his chest, beating to the rhythm of her words. “Get off, get off, _get off_ \--” 

“ _ **DREAM!**_ ” She blurts and feels the first tears break free. 

“Move,” she tries instead, and it’s desperate. The tears flow freely now, she sobs like a symphony. Syncopated and fragmented by her gasps for breath, but still a sick sort of music. She babbles for a moment, trying to string together words. Nothing coherent makes it out.

His head tilts to the side and lifts a hand to cup her face and wipe away a tear with his thumb. She leans into his touch and relinquishes that vain hope of keeping it together. “Hey… Hey, it’s going to be okay.”

Her hand thumps off his chest once again, but when she draws back, she doesn’t hit him again. Leta’s hand splays flat on his chest instead and finds it’s simply instinct when her head falls forward to butt against his shoulder. 

He traces from her jaw to behind her neck and Dream pulls her closer. The hand in contact with the wall snakes so comfortingly around her waist. They stand there for a moment, hugging. He smells like sweat and heat and dirt, normal for him. It’s grounding, it lets her breathe. When her crying slows to a stop, she mumbles against his chest. 

“Mm… What was that?”

“Just…” Leta pulls back. “It’s… It’ll never be okay. It’s never going to be okay.”

He breaks into a laugh, softly at first. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “What do you mean? C’mon now, everything’s going to be fine!”

“That’s not--”

“No no no,” he says, pressing a firm kiss to her forehead. “No, see, everything’s going to be alright.”

“You know why? You’re going to start visiting more and I’ll make it all up to you. We’ll sort it out, put together a schedule or something.”

Something in her feels deeply, deeply wrong. “Dream, I don’t think that’s--”

He carries on like she had said nothing, “and you’ll understand why I did it all. How much I care about you, how important you are to me. You just have to trust me, starlight.”

“Trust is earned,” she emphasizes, hoping maybe he’ll get the point. 

“Exactly, so I’ll earn it.” He looks so satisfied somehow, even with the blood on his face darkening and drying. He smiles so fondly at her, leans in and presses his lips to hers. They’re chapped and dry, but she’s so tired of resisting.

Leta gives in and closes her eyes. 

He’s probably lying to her. It’s another game they’ll play that’ll burn her in the end. She knows the choice she’s making by giving him this hope, by siding with him again. When she leaves the prison, she’ll be alone. She’ll go back to her house and she’ll cry. She’ll make her bed to sleep through the day, and she’ll get in it, only to be tormented by dreams of a life so much better than her own. 

But for now? For now, she can pretend it’s okay. She can pretend he means what he’s saying and he actually wants to repair what they have. She can pretend that the urgency he threads his fingers through her hair is completely pure desire, and not driven by another scheme. 

Does it matter what the truth is if she chooses not to accept it?

No, she supposes. It doesn’t.

And she melds into his touch. It’s more possessive now, he must sense the self control vanishing in her. Leta presses her body closer, wonders if he can feel how hard her heart begins to beat. He grumbles something in approval against her, then gives a bite to her lower lip.

She tastes metallic blood in the kiss, wonders blankly if it was his, leftover, or hers, fresh. It doesn’t take long to figure out, because when his tongue swipes along her lower lip and she feels him smile at the taste, she knows well enough that it’s hers. There’s something frustratingly attractive about that, she gives him another shove back.

He pulls away, eyes glinting with challenge. The thin thread of spit that connects them is tinged red. 

“Oh, you wanna be like that?” He smirks, all mischief. One of his large hands is enough to circle both of her wrists. He yanks her forward by them, just because he can. “Baby,” he drawls, “just give me what I want, don’t play.”

She gives a pull back, trying to free her hands. Grits her teeth. “You act like you own me.”

Dream pulls her wrists up above her head until she’s rushing to the tips of her toes and he pushes her back towards the wall. She makes a breathy little sound. 

“Don’t I?”

He lets go of her hands, point made. His voice drops an octave as he runs his free hands up her side, resting on her hip. He leers at her. “You really gonna tell me you haven’t been missing me? All this time, you didn’t think of me like this once?”

She bites her tongue. 

“I know you did, it’s alright.” He rubs circles comfortingly into her side. “So how about we start over--”

“I didn’t,” she insists, cutting him off. “Why would I think about you?” 

“I thought of you.” 

His obvious confidence falters for a moment. “Leta, of course I thought of you.”

Her heart palpitates, for some reason it truly catches her off guard. She finds herself reaching out to him instead of moving away and places her hand to the place where his jawline meets his neck. She feels him swallow hard, and when he speaks, the faint waver in his voice seems unforced. 

“I thought of you every day-- I wasn’t kidding when I told you I’d be home soon.” He takes her hand in his, moves it to his lips. The kiss he presses there is feather-light, sentimental. “I really thought I would be.”

The silence is sweltering. 

She can’t bring herself to ask if he’s telling the truth. Just hearing it is enough, even if it’s a lie. So she kisses him, and when he groans relief into her mouth, a part of her thinks she’s made the right choice.

His hands roam across her freely now, it’s like he can’t hold her enough. His breathing is heavier between rushed kisses, and as he grabs a handful of her ass, the hem of her skirt rises up. She feels exposed, but it doesn’t matter because he makes this sound, deep in his chest. “My dress, you wore green for me,” he sighs. “You must have missed me.” 

She doesn’t care anymore. He pushes his tongue into her mouth and she greedily accepts. She’s starting to feel it, whatever is possessing him. This intoxicating kind of desire, a release from being so fucking alone. Anywhere he touches, she’s taking hold of him, pulling him closer. Leta needs him to grab her harder, dig his nails in so she knows how painfully real it all is.

She lets her mind free as he invades her senses, warmth of his breath torrid as he starts to press kisses to her neck. They’re hot, messy. His tongue lathes across her, teeth drag across tingling skin like a warning. Her fingers lace through his hair and force him harder into her neck. He takes the hint, and turns from sucking bruises on her skin, to biting and mouthing at her rougher until she’s certain she might bleed. When his marking becomes more of a threat, she moans barely restrained, all needy, all keening. 

Arousal starts to simmer, that tick in her core that makes her painfully aware of all the spaces they aren’t touching. 

“Dream,” she whines, nails scratching at his scalp. He can’t be close enough, she’s not drowning in him yet. 

“Shhh…” He purrs headily, draws her waist closer until she can feel him steadily hardening through the pants of his uniform. When her hips stutter, she doesn’t have to look to know he’s smug.

Fantasies buzz through her head. Slipping behind her in the bath, sneaking into bed with her, doing something cheeky under the cover of trees overhead. She can feel the flush of her skin; no delicately constructed daydream could compare to mere moments of this, sticky and fevered and selfish.

Of all the scenarios she envisioned, having him fuck her on the floor of a prison wasn’t exactly first on the list, but when he starts pulling her down with him, she finds it’s all she’ll be thinking about for months to come. 

When they settle, he’s quick about pulling her into his lap despite her own hesitations. “I, I can take you, kitten, c’mere--” 

So she’s straddling his lap. Impatience radiates off of him in waves, she’s dragged into his undertow. That helpless, drowning feeling she had been searching for finds her forcefully; breathing is so much harder when he’s pulling her dress over her head. Their lips meet again as he tosses the fabric carelessly aside. One of his hands grips at her thigh, encourages her to wrap her legs around him. 

It feels so good to listen, so easy to slip into this pattern despite how foreign it is. Something about his presence is dizzying, the more of him she tastes on her tongue, the more heat rises from her abdomen to her chest. 

He paws at her back clumsily at first but eventually finds what he had been looking for. The clasp of her bra comes undone easily. It joins her dress, somewhere in the room that isn’t separating him from her. Even in the thick of all the humid heat, his touch is still a shock. Still intense, still scalding. Months of pining coalesce when he moans her name.

The way it makes her feel is nearly out of body and she aches, painfully empty. She feels herself tighten around nothing, squirming in his lap. 

His hands slow deliberately, “oh, need something?”

“More, please,” and the honesty of it is mortifying.

That triggers something. 

He pushes her back in an instant, her back is bare against the ground now. He stares down, dirty blond hair falling into his face. One hand steadies him, the other goes to sweep back some of his locks. “Isn’t this so much easier, acting like lovers do?”

She doesn’t really want to parse his words. He’s getting closer to what she wants, just at that precipice of giving her the one thing she’s asked for. 

She nods instead of protests and he grins, all teeth. He lifts his shirt over his head, exposing lean muscle and long, jagged scar tissue. She reaches out to touch him, slowly tracing along the largest of the scars. His muscles visibly contract as her hand drifts down, lower until she can graze his cock over his pants. 

“God, fuck…” He takes her wrist in hand, presses her closer so she’s palming him. He dictates the pace, watches her through lidded eyes even as his head tilts back. His rhythm is slow, teasing the both of them, steadily starting to roll his hips until there’s a small wet spot on the fabric near the head of his cock. He’s leaking precum, starting to make these breathier moans. “The number of times I’ve killed myself in here… Thinking I was alone, thinking you were gone…” 

It’s a mix of guilt and shameful arousal she feels. To be needed, to be thought of. It’s all she wants.

She pulls her fingers in a bit, actually starts stroking him. His voice tremors for a moment, a pause in the string of muttered curses and stuttered syllables. “Y-You like that, hm? Knowing you were on my mind?”

“Don’t answer, I don’t want you to talk.” He pulls her hand away and leans forward. He presses a heated kiss to her lips and when he pulls away, she whines again. Knowingly, “because of course you do.”

She moans, noise high in her throat. His hand creeps between her legs and though she tries to move him, he bats her away instead. Her knuckles still sting from earlier, but the embarrassment she feels when he presses two fingers to her slit over her panties to rub gently and already finds her wet is worse. 

Leta covers her face instead, just seeing his grin for two seconds is more than enough. He’s goaded along, can’t help but drop into that patronizing, teasing tone again. 

“Baby, if you needed something, you could’ve said so.”

His body language shifts. He drags down her body, adjusts her legs until they’re spread and she’s on display for him. She shivers, insecure and the tiniest bit afraid. 

The look in his eyes is tantalizingly predatory. It takes him all of two seconds to take a firm grip on the cotton of her panties, and she hears every thread tear so clearly. She wishes it was more surprising than it is, but when he tosses the torn shreds towards the lava, it feels natural. As dangerous as he is, it’s nice to see him be true to himself. 

He’s languid for the first time since she’s been in the cell with him. He’s patient in the way he settles down on his knees, and when his hands rest on her waist, his touch is almost tender. Her legs twitch like she wants to close them, but he simply ghosts his fingertips down her skin until he can get a grip on her thighs. He helps keep her pliant, makes her relax back onto her elbows.

“Look at how I make you feel, even when I haven’t really touched you,” he starts, plotting kisses along her inner thighs, stubble scratching faintly. She shudders a breath out, has to fight that instinct to clam up again. His grip on her tightens. It’s bordering on a threat, despite the way his half-lidded eyes look up at her so kindly. His head dips lower, and with a flat tongue, slowly sweeps up her slit just to taste. It’s so teasing, so relaxed, until he skims over her clit. His tongue points, presses into her harder. She can feel herself throb, head falling back. 

“Isn’t it so nice to let go? ...I can take care of you,” he says, low and gravely. He draws his tongue through her wetness again, still with this teasing pace that’s so frustrating. He groans. It sends tingles through her and she breathes out his name, his real name.

One of his hands is careful, resting on her lower abdomen. It’s protective almost, spurns on that part of her that just wants to be at the center of his universe, the thing that calls him in and pools all his attention. It’s selfish, it’s wanton, and the way that she rolls her hips is so indulgent. He must know, and that hand goes to pressing her pelvic bone down, holding her in place as he starts to focus a bit more on her bundle of nerves. 

She’s so sensitive, he wraps his now slickened lips around her clit. Sucks for just a moment, just long enough to draw a breathless gasp from her. It’s mortifying how easy this is for him, how effortlessly he’s able to toy with her like this. Her mouth stays agape, puffs of hot air escaping after strangled moans-- she’s trying so hard to hold back, but he’s slowly pushing two fingers into her. Gently, plyingly. It stretches her open, slakes that clawing need. She feels her lower half tense, clenching around his fingers as he carefully, so kindly uses his fingers. He treats her delicately, encouraging her. His tone is loving, patient as he calls her name. Croons praise for how well she’s taking him already. 

He’s leisurely ravishing her. It’s nearly calculated, and somehow always just a second or two too slow, just barely preventing her from rushing over the edge. And in concert with all her panting little moans are huffs of frustration. A needy sort of arousal, one that tempts her to drag her nails roughly along his scalp so he’ll perhaps move faster. Deep in her heart, however, she knows that wouldn’t do anything to persuade him. If anything, he’d drag his wet tongue along her with a maddening kind of restraint. Still his fingers and make her rock her hips just to get the slightest bit of stimulation. 

There’s a smugness about him again, the softer side melting away as he pulls back. “Seems like something’s missing, hm?”

“Clay, please,” she pouts, not meaning for it to come off quite so melodramatic. 

His brow quirks, and though he’s still coaxing her through several more shivering moans, he’s distracted.

“Maybe you should ask nicer than that.” 

When she goes quiet, holding back another sound, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Ask nicer, lets see how generous I’m feeling,” he orders, eyes half-lidded and self-congratulatory. 

“That’s not f--”

“Taking a tone? Maybe we should stop, if you really don’t want it…” 

His smile is obnoxious. He’s stilled by this point and, of course, she’s forced to play into his hand yet again. With a steadying breath, “I want you, can… Can you please, can you give me more?”

It’s vague, but it’s a decent start. He seems happy enough for now, fingers rocking into her again, thumb sliding ever so gently over her clit. She shudders, whimpering another desperate plea, and he’s back in action, fully. He sinks back down, setting an easy pace just like this. He keeps his mouth off of her, preventing those lovely, rumbling vibrations every time he speaks. So she whines, impatient, squirming underneath him. 

“Dream, I need you— I need you to give me more, I want your mouth…” She tapers off, putting all her effort into stopping any stutter. He seems to like that a little more and gives her what she had asked for; she sinks her teeth into her lip. 

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he groans under his breath, she’s sure he can feel just how taut and tense she is under him. “Flushed, making all this noise. I-I wanna see, I wanna see how loud I can get you,” he breathes, and fucks his fingers into her a little harder, curling them relentlessly into that spot inside her that makes her choke out gasp after groan. He’s using her with determination, frustrated and so ruthless, she finds herself clawing at the cracks in the floor. 

It’s all flooding her at once, all the tension he’s built and snapped over and over, all the teasing he’s done, all the nights spent dreaming of something just like this. And his pace is so breakneck, she’s close faster than she expected, given he had been so coy to begin with.

Her breathing is stuttered, uneven, and her head falls back as she sees him steady himself on his knees. One hand busy, the other helping him support his body weight as he creeps closer, descending on her. He’s trailing kisses from her collarbone up to her neck. It’s hot on her skin, and when he closes the gap to press a bruising kiss to where her jaw meets her neck, her hips jerk up. 

“C’mon now,” he grunts, softness gone. It’s just beneath her ear and the intimacy nearly pains her, it’s so intense. It’s the closest they’ve ever been to each other-- no embrace, no kiss could come close. “Give in, love.”

That breaks her-- one specific word has her gone, cumming on his fingers as he forcefully drags her through her orgasm. Pleasure ebbs from everywhere he’s touching her, and when she can finally manage to move again, she pulls him on top of her. Hangs into him like she’d fall from the earth if she didn’t, like he’s the only thing that’s ever mattered to her. 

His lips catch hers as he lies on top. She can’t help the way she moans into his mouth, riding every last wave, impulses overriding any sense of abashment. When she’s through all the aftershocks, jitters subsiding for a melted, blissed state, he slowly withdraws his hand. She feels something wet on her inner thigh, though she’s too melted to care enough to get flustered by it. 

He gives her thigh a little squeeze from where his hand lays casually-- it’s encouraging, it’s sweet. The tone of his voice, however, is nothing but sin. 

“You’re such a good girl.”

He pulls away, much to her disappointment. Shifts his weight, readjusts himself, and she can feel just how hard he is through his pants. It presses against her thigh, now that he’s settled between her legs. He wipes his hand off on his pants, then as he speaks, starts fiddling with the fly.

“Such a good girl for me, just-- let me take these off.”

All she can do is thank him for the praise, voice a little garbled from overuse and strain. God, how was she going to leave here, sounding and looking like this. A mess of mussed hair, sex-blushed skin, and crumpled clothing.

She’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it.

Meanwhile, Dream shucks off his pants. She tries hard not to stare too much as he crawls back on top of her, idly stroking himself with one hand. Leta parts her legs nearly on instinct, reluctance completely voided. He gives her a little grin at this, placing his free hand hooked underneath her knee. 

“Think you’re ready?”

She thinks of saying something even somewhat retaliatory, or even something sweet, but it’d all sound so silly if she tried to speak coherently. So she nods instead, reaches her arms up to lace behind his neck and pull him in. He takes this as invitation enough, the hand around his cock slowly guiding himself through her folds, wetting the head of his cock. She’s still so sensitive, but ends up whimpering in some mixture of overstimulation and desire. He’s teasing, he’s always so teasing, and she swears she’ll get him back for it someday. 

Today, however, she can’t resist long enough for that to matter. 

“Take me,” she breathes, faces so close, she can see the little speckles of gold in his mossy green eyes. His pupils dilate at this, and she watches his eyes twitch closed as he finally sheathes himself inside her. She kisses him, moan muffled by his lips. 

He barely stills for a second, and after a few stuttered snaps of his hips, his eyes are open again. There’s something in those eyes, troublesome and dark; he has a primal sort of arousal about him, an animalism that borders on extinction in the world outside these walls.

And as they part from the kiss, his head rocks forward so that his sweaty forehead presses against her, skin sticky and slick. His breath is rough now, starting to feel the work and exertion. 

“I love you,” he starts, taking a break to huff a breath, “can’t you see?”

Something in her core twists at this, a morphed mixture of relief and elation. It’s tainted by her greedier desires, tainted by the kind of person he is. But she finds herself momentarily uncaring-- “I-I love you, I love you,” she pants out. To say it like this out loud feels dreamlike, she can feel herself floating. Still overworked from her own orgasm, her head’s swimming. She has to fight to keep up with the current second. 

He, on the other hand, is encouraged. He's fucking her like it's an obligation he has, both to her and to himself. “Look at how perfect we fit together, kitten--” His hands travel up to rest so easily on her hips. He’s confident now, he’s got a rhythm he can speak through, as the wet sound of skin on skin echoes lewdly through the room. “Can you hear yourself? Can, can you see how my hands fit here? Hm?” 

She nods, wishes he’d run his long fingers up her body, to stroke over her cheek, to pet her hair. Instead, one creeps higher to her waist, tugging her impossibly closer. She squeaks at this, not expecting him to actually have moved her. But there he is, dashing her expectations, pistoning his hips in a way that has her working towards another climax. 

The way he’s cursing under his breath is bordering on sacreligious, she eats it up. Her own thoughts are fragmented, just tiny little fractals she can’t force from her lips. He was always the better of the pair at talking-- somehow constantly able to seduce her into one thing or another. So when she’s able to formulate a sentence, her own voice heady and full of desire, he looks taken aback. 

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she keens, though it’s to herself more than to him. “Been daydreaming about you…” Leta’s desperate now, chasing the next high. Inhibitions are gone, allowing her to put voice to the thoughts in her head. 

His grip turns bruising, her body arches in response. She wonders if he truly could hold her tight enough to mark.

“What was that?” He sounds eager, “say that again, louder.”

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” she says, more coherent, louder. “God, I needed you--”

His hips snap up into her harder with the next thrust in, and it makes her cry out. He seems to correct himself, simply riding his own impulses a little too much. He doesn’t apologize, just keeps his pace, smirking down at her. “Yeah, this what you pictured?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but he presses a hand, unbothered, to her parted lips. A few fingers slip clumsily inside, but he doesn’t care. “Your Dream, fucking you in half, while you make those cute little ‘fuck me’ eyes?”

“‘M not--”

“‘God, I needed you’,” he mocks, mimicking her face and tone as his hips pointedly push forward, making her squeak and cry out. And once she squirms in embarrassment, he laughs from his chest. It’s maniacal in the most lighthearted way, and he reaches up to stroke her cheek and turn her attention back to him once she’s gotten the point. “I’m sorry, it’s just so obvious.”

His hand moves from her mouth, rests just by her neck. “It’s cute that you don’t see just how obvious it is that you need me, I love that about you.”

She’s not sure if that’s actually a compliment, but the excitable parts of her light up at that word again -- ‘love’ -- so she finds herself ignoring whatever tone he might’ve had before. “I can’t help it around you,” she offers. It’s true-- he causes something indescribable with her. He triggers a part of her brain that she hadn’t noticed before. 

He grunts, head falling forward, pumping his hips instead of giving her meek little sentence a response. It’s hot, watching his brow furrow in concentration. She wants to reach up and touch him, but when she reaches a hand up, he grabs it and pins it down beside her head.

She wonders if he can feel her heightened pulse with his hand on hers like that. She wonders what it’d be like if he were to wrap one of his large, calloused hands around her neck. She’s been choked before, loved the lightheaded rush it gave her. She thinks he’d like it too, watching her face flush and eyes roll up in pleasure. She wonders if he’d go too far, if he’d even be able to control himself if he got that strangling, overwhelming grasp on her neck.

She shivers, clenches around him and he chokes out a particularly strained moan. “God,” he says, “the fuck were you thinking about? That mouth was awfully quiet.”

“Hands! I was th-thinking about your hands,” she mumbles out. It’s not entirely false, though he clearly senses there’s more to it. 

“Give me a bit more, princess, I know you’re more creative than that.” His tone is just the lightest bit patronizing; she feels him throb inside her when she constricts around him again.

“I was thinking about your hand on my neck, just,” and she clenches again, “squeezing around me…” He’s visibly antagonized, reels a hand back and wraps it securely around her throat. 

“You think you’re real funny,” he says, mirthful. “Lets see, then.”

His fingers squeeze the sides of her neck, restricting her blood flow. She notices her pulse start to thump in her neck, she’s certain now he must feel it. It’s steady at first, when she thinks this is a joke, that he’s just fooling around. So her smile is big, daring even.

“Lets see how you really like it, being choked.” And his grip tightens.

Now her heartbeat quickens, skipping beats, excited and overwhelmed as her thoughts become dizzied. The lightheadedness isn’t intense to start with, more of a fog that dulls anything that isn’t his fingertips, or his cock threatening to bludgeon her from the inside. She goes to speak and finds herself rasping instead, words coming out as little, thready things. She’s not even quite sure what she’s saying, just that words are trying their hardest to make it out. 

Just that thought arouses her, and she sees it mirrored in him above her. “Like that? Hm?”

She wonders for a moment if he’s about to spit in her panting, open mouth. But he doesn’t, just presses harder and she quite literally chokes out a moan. Her hands come up to his, and for almost a second he hesitates, but when her hands hold him steadily in place, he doubles down with a loud groan of her name. 

“Har’dr,” she wheezes out. And she’s not sure if she’s talking about his punishing pace, or if it’s about his grip. 

His face quirks in confusion, his hips stutter for just a moment.

She makes up her mind in that moment, is ready to finish chasing this high. “F’ck me,” she manages, barely audible above the steady drips of lava and his body on hers. 

"Beg me to fuck you again," he grunts down at her as he tightens his grip on her throat. 

When she can’t manage words, he repeats himself, emboldened. "Did you hear me? Again. Again."

“D-Dre’, pl’s,” she stutters. It’s hardly even a gasp, and her mind is starting to steadily spin. When her vision gets closer to hazy than to crisp, her hand weakly finds its way up his arm, to claw at his chest. She swats at him, pleading silently for a breath, having expended all of hers with the lame attempt at begging. She’s not really sure when he does notice, if he even does. But sometime in the floaty seconds after he loosens his hold, she feels her chest fill full of air once again. It’s freeing, the liberty to breathe on her own makes the heat in her core much harder to ignore. She’s more handsy now, so much more needy after he expended so little energy to leave her a breathless mess. She needs to hold him, needs to know that he’ll protect her-- he who holds life so flippantly in his hands.

It has no right to be so attractive. She loves him, she tells him she loves him over and over until he’s forced to react. She sounds like some sort of broken record-- beautiful because it’s been so thoroughly used. Beautiful for the skipped beats, for the thoughts that are cut off by its own making. 

He looks down at her affectionately now, though there’s still something that lurks behind his eyes. She’s certain he felt something, more than something when he held her in his hand. 

“Thank you,” she finally sighs when she can breathe evenly. 

“You liked that, I saw how much you liked that,” he cackles, enthused. With that, his hand drags up from her neck and into her hair. He jerks her down and to the side with his grip on her locks, pointing her towards the useless patch of dirt in the corner of the cell. She moves like a toy for him, a possession he can prop up and move around. There’s a filthy part of her that loves it, that yearns for his touch, however he’ll give it to her.

“When we’re done here,” he starts, shoving her face that much harder into the hot obsidian, “you can show me just what you wanted to before. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

She’s not sure if the tiny cuts on her cheek from the unpolished floor are on purpose, or are purely out of passion. Either way, it just amplifies his point, makes it deafen her in his meaning.

“I want it, I need that with you--” She wants a future with him, and much like his touch, she’s hungry for whatever that means, however she can manage to get it from her. It’s desperate and she can’t help it when she whines for him again.

“Yeah? Don’t we work so well together?”

She nods again, too afraid to interrupt him. His voice is the only sound that matters, the only anchor still keeping her tethered to the absurdity of the whole situation. That, and the thumb that grazes so gently over her clit. She responds in kind, touch ghosting over the arms that steady him.

“Such a good girl, my little doll,” he praises, allowing her to gaze back up at him, despite how glossy and teary her eyes have become. She’s so close, just a little more and she’s gone.

“All yours,” she echoes, sold. “I’m all yours, Dream, I’ve always been yours--”

Before she can finish the thought, “‘course you are, I knew it from the moment we met.”

“You were made to be mine.”

She comes undone, unable to hold out any longer. Rides through wave after wave of mind-numbing pleasure. Pleasure so intense, she’s not surprised by the few, heavy tears that streak down her cheeks to the side of her face. Nothing feels real anymore, even him. The anchor is gone, leaving her stranded in her own intense bliss.

And she senses his own end as hers comes to a close, feels his hips stutter a final time as he pumps his seed into her. When her sight clears, when she can remember to open her eyes, she’s able to look up and see his own blissed-out expression. Head cast skywards, holding her so close it’s painful.

And when they’ve come down, breathing labored, he presses his forehead to hers as he had done before. It’s almost uncomfortably intimate, even considering all that had happened. 

He huffs a laugh out, satisfied, still inside of her as he lightly collapses atop her. 

“Can you imagine what it’d be like, both of us out there?”

She’s quiet for a while. A guardian sounds somewhere in the prison as her head falls back, his fluffed blond hair in her peripherals. 

“No, I can’t. It’s… Too much to imagine.”

“That… That’s fair,” he concedes. “We can still have everything you want from here, we’ll make it work, won’t we?”

To do anything other than agree feels like a crime.

“It’ll be alright. It’ll all be alright, I promise.”

For a while they lay there, melted into one another. Whispering kindnesses, kissing affection to every inch of skin.

Getting redressed is a process she hardly remembers; being unable to look the warden in the eyes as she slowly begins the process of leaving is the next thing she remembers after looking into Dream’s green eyes one last time. Sam, surprisingly, pays her no mind as they part ways. Inwardly, she wonders just how much he heard. He’d surely never tell her, but she wonders.

Did he hear the promises they made after, the ones about a life together? Or the gentle ‘I love you’s in contrast to his nearly feral behavior. Did he even care? Was this just another oddity in the collection of visits to Dream’s cell?

She doesn’t honestly want to know. Let her keep her peace. Let her keep her false promises.

For when she returns to Pandora’s Vault, the only thing that matters is still behind bars. And as she shows her face again, he utters one simple question.

_**“What took you so long?”** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for giving this a chance! this was all unbeta'd and pretty off the cuff, so it's not my best work. again, if there are any questions or interest for more oc/dream or true dream/reader content, let me know! i promise i can do soft stuff too, this was just pretty heavy


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